Percona Live Conference, London – December 4, 2012 –The founders of the most popular databases on the web, Michael Widenius, David Axmark, and Allan Larsson today announced the formation of the MariaDB Foundation. “MariaDB continues the project started 18 years ago when we founded MySQL, with code maintained by the same dedicated core team. The time is right for an independent organisation to to safeguard the interests of MariaDB users and developers as we head towards MariaDB 10” said David Axmark.

“The MariaDB Foundation has the potential to become a new beacon for the MySQL ecosystem. SkySQL is pleased to support the Foundation, which can show leadership and continued evolution of the most widely used Open Source database.” said Patrik Sallner, CEO of SkySQL

Peter Zaitsev, co-founder of Percona said “We are delighted to support the MariaDB Foundation. We see the Foundation as a way of guaranteeing the stability and production engineering we need in the core code we share with so many other companies and users.”

Dan Shearer, veteran of the OpenChange and Samba teams added “Not only are databases increasingly embedded in infrastructure, but they are a means of expression. People engaged in genome research, public statistics bodies and open access data projects are concerned that their databases stay accessible for generations to come.Longevity is as much an issue as clustering and high availability.”

In its mission statement, the MariaDB Foundation exists to improve database technology, including standards implementation, interoperability with other databases, and building bridges to other types of database such as transactional and NoSQL. To deliver this the Foundation provides technical work in reviewing, merging, testing, and releasing the MariaDB product suite. The Foundation also provides infrastructure for the MariaDB project and the user and developer communities.

Monty Widenius is looking forward to an autonomous MariaDB Foundation. “Tens of millions of users rely on MariaDB and MySQL and they have more to thank than just all the excellent developers and persons helping to package and distribute MariaDB and MySQL. MariaDB exists thanks to the strength of the GPL and the efforts of the organizations who defend it such as our friends at the Software Freedom Conservancy and the Free Software Foundation Europe. The MariaDB Foundation will provide leadership on technical, legal, and policy matters of interest to all the community.”

About MariaDB
MariaDB is the compatible successor to MySQL, the world’s most popular Open Source database. MariaDB has greatly improved scalability and performance, engines for NoSQL and volume transaction processing, and clustering capability. The MariaDB client libraries are available under the liberal LGPL license, enabling a new generation of commercial applications. In a study by the 451 Group in May 2012, 85% of the companies surveyed were using MariaDB or MySQL data formats.

About the MariaDB Foundation
The MariaDB Foundation is a non-stock corporation that has applied for the US 501(c)(3) status, with so far 8 founders and 2 sponsors having pledged support, and more in discussion. In February 2013 the founders will appoint board members and confirm the bylaws. Until then the interim officers of the Foundation are: